-N.NtX 


TOULOUSE 


LAUTREC 


HYPERION 


LAUTREC 


I  2 


MISS  MAY  BELFORT.    1895.     Detail 
Bernheim-Jeune  Collection 


HYPERION   MINIATURES 


LAUTREC 

BY 
HENRI   DUMONT 


THE    HYPERION     PRESS 
LONDON         •          PARIS         •          NEW  YORK 


PRINTED  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  BY 
BROWN  BIBBY  AND  GREGORY  LTD  LIVERPOOL  AND  LONDON 


"A  LA  MIE."  MAURICE  GUIBERT. 
Private  Collection 


1891 


LAUTREC 


MORE  than  any  other  painter  of  his  time,   Lautrec  stands   out  as  the 
embodiment  of  Paris.  At  night,  the  city  of  hidden  and  frenzied  pleasures, 
as  well  as  of  outdoor  games  during  the  day;    the  city  on  whose    perpetual 
stage-boards  the  passing  show  ceaselessly  changes  into  history  has  never  been 
better  understood  or  more  strikingly  expressed  on  canvas. 

[5] 

2031511 


However,  this  denizen  of  Montmartre  was  not  a  Parisian.  Born  at  Albi  on 
November  24th,  1864,  Henri  de  Toulouse-Lautrec  was  the  son  of  a  count 
famous  for  his  eccentricity.  A  "grand  seigneur"  with  numerous  carriages  and 
multifarious  love-affairs,  Count  Alphonse  de  Toulouse-Lautrec  gave  his  son 
an  excellent  education,  assisted  by  his  wife,  an  admirably  cultured  woman. 
Henri  was  first  brought  up  at  Albi,  then  in  Paris  where  he  went  to  the  Lycee 
Condorcet.  His  health  was  always  delicate  and  unfortunately  two  falls  at  the 
age  of  fourteen  and  fifteen  broke  both  his  legs.  The  efforts  of  medical  men 
and  a  long  convalescence  in  the  south  of  France  effected  but  little  improvement 
and  his  legs  remained  crippled  and  undeveloped  for  life.  One  can  imagine 
the  reactions  of  this  active  boy,  a  good  horseman  to  boot,  laid  up  in  the  most 
active  period  of  youth.  However,  his  temper  did  not  deteriorate  and  if  he 
took  refuge  in  the  drawing  of  horses,  and  later  of  women,  both  unattainable 
henceforth,  the  part  of  repression  in  his  work  must  not  be  exaggerated,  although 
it  did  undoubtedly  exist. 

His  first  master  was  Princeteau,  a  friend  of  his  father's,  who  specialized  in 
racing  and  hunting  scenes.  He  directed  his  young  pupil  towards  the  ateliers  of 
Bonnat,  and  later  Cormon,  from  both  of  whom  Lautrec  managed  to  obtain  an 
adequate  instruction  in  spite  of  their  utter  incomprehension  of  his  talent.  He 
remained  with  them  for  four  years. 

The  rest  of  his  training  was  given  him  by  life  itself.  Montmartre,  which 
attracted  him  as  early  as  1884,  was  then  at  the  beginning  of  its  fame.  Some 
will  say  it  was  at  its  height,  because  there  was  nothing  artificial  about  it; 
publicity  had  not  yet  killed  the  picturesqueness  of  old  Montmartre,  tourists 
were  individuals  and  not  herds,  while  the  artists  enjoyed  their  own  performances 
with  all  their  hearts.  The  contrast  between  daytime  in  the  quiet  streets  with 
their  little  provincial  gardens  and  nightfall  around  the  famous  cabarets  which 
had  just  then  opened  was  much  more  striking  than  nowadays.  Some  of  the 
dance-halls  immortalized  by  Lautrec,  such  as  the  Moulin  Rouge,  have  never 
ceased  to  exist.  Others — the  Chat  Noir,  the  Divan  Japonais — have  since 
disappeared,  not  without  leaving  a  great  influence  on  manners  and  a  legacy 
of  spicy  and  sentimental  songs.  Lautrec  resorted  to  all  of  them;  people  became 
used  to  the  ugly  little  man  who  was  the  friend  of  people  as  different  as  Aristide 
Bruant,  the  chansonnier  who  ran  the  Chat  Noir,  and  Oscar  Wilde.  For  Bruant, 
Lautrec  illustrated  songs  and  Oscar  Wilde  found  him  faithful  in  the  days  of 
scandal  and  disgrace. 

[6] 


COUNTESS  A.  DE  TOULOUSE-LAUTREC.    1882.     Detail 

Albi  Museum  [  7  ] 


HORSEWOMAN  AND  GROOM.    1880 

Albi  Museum 


He  was  friendly  with  everybody,  in  spite  of,  and  perhaps  because  of  a  certain 
pride  which  prevented  his  being  approached  too  closely,  but  he  was  particularly 
the  friend  of  the  Montmartre  prostitutes.  They  were  unconstrained  before 
him  and  gave  way  to  their  true  nature,  and  he  depicted  them  as  they  were: 
human,  spineless,  slatternly,  tipsy  or  besotted  by  nights  of  debauchery,  without 
either  criticizing  them  or  moralizing  at  their  expense.  Whilst  Degas  with 
every  incisive  line  stresses  the  inferior  condition  of  his  models,  Lautrec  on  the 
contrary  often  makes  us  aware  in  spite  of  himself  of  the  involuntary  grace, 
the  animal  nobility  of  fallen  women,  in  a  perfectly  impartial  manner. 

Prostitutes  interested  him  for  some  time;  he  even  decorated  a  brothel  with 
portraits  of  its  inmates.  But  the  fauna  of  Montmartre  was  not  restricted  to 
these  girls;  there  were  other  specimens  who  captured  his  eager  brush.  LaGoulue 
(The  Glutton),  a  professional  dancer  at  the  Moulin  Rouge,  was  extremely 
dignified  and  her  partner  Valentin  le  Desosse  (Boneless  Valentine),  although 
an  amateur,  was  a  very  brilliant  performer  in  the  quadrille.  A  poster  painted 
for  La  Goulue  in  1891  set  Lautrec  on  the  road  to  fame.  The  nicknames  of  her 

[81 


— sT 


COUNT  A.  DE  TOULOUSE-LAUTREC  DRIVING  HIS  MAIL-COACH 
IN  NICE.    1 8  8 1 .     Musee  du  Petit  Palais,  Paris 

companions  were  just  as  strange  as  her  own  and  comparable  to  present-day 
"existentialist"  sobriquets.  There  was  for  instance  "Grille  d'Egout"  (Sewer 
Grating)  who  might  have  aptly  presided  at  the  election  of  "Miss  Dustbin" 
in  1948. 

Jane  Avril  was  called  "La  Melinite."  A  gifted  solo  dancer,  she  was  both 
original  and  refined.  Lautrec  made  many  sketches  and  portraits  of  her.  She 
was  the  opposite  of  La  Goulue  and  her  fine,  sad  features  are  rendered  with  more 
concise  and  more  moving  brushstrokes. 

Another  celebrity  at  the  height  of  her  career  was  the  singer  Yvette  Guilbert. 
Lautrec  made  many  striking  posters  of  her.  Night  after  night  he  would  return 
to  the  same  seat  in  order  to  observe  all  these  stars  and  seize  some  fleeting 
attitude  or  expression. 

[9] 


His  love  of  sport  equalled  his  interest  in  the  dance.  Tristand  Bernard,  the 
writer,  who  was  then  sporting  manager  of  the  Velodrome  Buffalo,  introduced 
him  to  the  cycling  circles  whose  races  then  began  to  be  in  vogue.  This  en- 
vironment proved  to  be  a  source  of  sketches  for  lithographs  and  posters. 

The  circus,  also  highly  popular  at  the  time,  was  another  favourite  haunt  of 
Lautrec's.  A  connoisseur,  he  knew  how  to  appreciate  the  prowess  of  the 
equestrian  performers  and  the  lion-tamers.  Tight-rope  dancers,  stars  of  the 
flying-trapeze  and  performing  horses  with  their  daring  silhouettes  fascinated 
him  during  the  empty  hours  of  the  last  years  of  his  life. 

He  was  a  friend  of  all  the  Impressionists  and  their  successors,  the  Symbolists, 
particularly  of  Van  Gogh  whose  portrait  he  painted.  However  he  did  not 
unreservedly  adopt  their  method.  He  did  not  bother  about  light  effects;  his 
lighting  is  uniformly  cold  and  revealing.  The  main  interest  of  a  canvas  lay, 
for  him,  in  the  expression  of  a  face  or  the  movement  of  an  animated  being 
and  everything  in  his  paintings  converges  to  define  his  characters.  There 
are  no  landscapes  empty  of  human  presence  and  no  still  lifes :  nothing  is  static, 
fixed  or  immutable. 

The  creator  of  the  psychological  portrait,  Lautrec  is  an  Impressionist  only 
in  the  brightness  of  his  colours  and  the  dislike  of  finicking.  He  draws  with  the 
brush;  his  very  pure  paint  is  diluted  to  the  utmost  which  gives  the  rapid,  sketchy 
effect  he  strives  to  obtain.  In  general,  like  the  Impressionists,  he  shuns  black 
and  neutral  tints,  but  unlike  Manet  he  also  avoids  contrasting  colours.  The 
freedom  of  his  construction  is  often  inspired  by  Japanese  art  and  in  this  respect 
he  was  certainly  influenced  by  Van  Gogh. 

Among  the  masters  of  the  period  he  particularly  liked  Degas,  who  was 
the  only  painter  he  invited  to  the  first  exhibition  of  his  works  in  1893.  The 
appreciation  of  the  old  misanthrope,  "Well  now,  Lautrec,  one  can  see  you're 
in  the  same  line!"  is  well  known.  We  can  imagine  the  joy  of  the  artist  who 
needed  friendship  more  than  any  one  else.  It  is  true  that  his  mother  stood  by 
him  all  his  life;  he  lived  with  her  and  she  understood,  much  better  than  any 
wife  would  have  done,  his  need  for  living  intensely  by  night  in  order  to  live 
again  by  day  with  an  even  greater  intensity  in  his  painting. 

It  would  have  been  surprising  if  he  did  not  drink  and  indeed  he  was 
saturated  with  alcohol.  Even  so,  he  accomplished  an  enormous  amount  of 
work,  contributing  to  Le  Hire,  La  Revue  Blanche,  Le  Mercure  de  France,  and 
illustrating  fine  books  without  ever  ceasing  to  visit  the  haunts  of  pleasure 
where  he  found  the  living  material  of  his  work.  But  he  was  generally  considered 
an  amateur  and,  with  a  few  notable  exceptions,  critics  did  not  greatly  appreciate 
him. 

[10] 


GUNNER  AND  TWO  HORSES. 
Albi  Museum 


1879 


Lautrec  went  to  England  where  he  met  Whistler  and  where  his  work  was 
exhibited  in  1898.  He  also  travelled  in  Belgium,  Holland  and  Spain.  But  with 
the  exception  of  English  public-houses,  music-hall  stars  such  as  Miss  May  Be/fort 
and  of  the  Portrait  of  Oscar  Wilde  painted  during  the  famous  trial,  his  work 
remains  faithful  to  the  underworld  of  Montmartre.  He  often  went  to  Le  Havre, 
Bordeaux  and  Arcachon;  he  did  not  bring  back  seascapes  but  portraits  of 
pleasant  barmaids  who  welcome  seamen.  He  disliked  the  coldness  of  the 
Dutch  and  the  facile  picturesqueness  of  Spain  which  suggested  only  a  few 
unimportant  sketches.  The  best  of  his  work  was  done  at  Montmartre  in  his 
studio  whence  he  could  see  the  neglected  gardens  of  Pere  Forest. 


The  art  of  Lautrec  is  filled  with  a  sadness  which  is  none  the  less  deep  for 
being  involuntary.  He  has  been  taxed  with  delighting  in  the  depiction  of  vice, 
with  seeing  evil  everywhere;  he  has  been  censured  for  his  loose  women  and 
disjointed  dancers;  it  has  been  said  that  by  the  cruelty  he  showed  in  the 
treatment  of  his  subjects  he  sought  to  wreak  vengeance  on  fate  for  his  own 
infirmity.  It  would  seem,  however,  that  his  object  was  simply  to  paint  what  he 
saw  without  any  moral  or  immoral  intention.  It  was  easy  to  gain  admittance 
into  the  casual  sphere  of  Montmartre  which  abounds  in  interesting  types 
and  psychological  attitudes  not  to  be  met  with  elsewhere;  moreover  this 
sphere  had  scarcely  ever  been  dealt  with  before  Lautrec.  That  is  probably 
why  he  became  attached  to  it  and  it  would  be  useless  to  assert  anything  else. 

The  strenuous  life  he  led,  his  work  and  above  all  his  drinking  excesses  had 
the  worst  effects  on  his  delicate  health.  In  1899  his  reason  was  impaired  and  he 
was  confined  to  a  nursing  home  at  Neuilly.  In  the  calm  and  silence  of  the 
clinic  he  drew  the  famous  crayon  series  of  The  Circus.  After  a  year  and  a  half 
at  Neuilly,  his  health  seemed  to  improve  and  for  a  while  he  went  back  to  normal 
life.  In  1901,  however,  during  the  summer  vacation  at  Taussat-les-Bains,  he 
was  stricken  with  paralysis  His  mother  hastened  to  his  side  and  took  him  home 
with  her.  On  September  9th  of  the  same  year,  Henri  de  Toulouse-Lautrec 
died  in  his  ancestral  chateau  of  Malrome,  surrounded  by  his  family  and  friends. 

The  work  of  Toulouse-Lautrec  bears  testimony  to  a  place,  a  period  and 
several  strange  spheres  of  activity;  its  human  value  gives  it  universal  scope. 

HENRI    DUMONT 


HORSEMEN  EN  ROUTE  TO  THE  BOIS  DE  BOULOGNE 

Ad.  Lewisohn  Collection,  New  York  [  13 


[14] 


THE  DOG-CART.    1880.     Detail 
Albi  Museum 


THE  RIDE.   COUNT  A.  DE  TOULOUSE-LAUTREC.    1883 

G.  Sere  de  Rivieres  Collection  [  15  ] 


16 


VINCENT  VAN  GOGH.    1887 
Municipal  Museum,  Amsterdam 


SUZANNE  VALADON.    1885 
Carlsberg  Glyptotek,  Copenhagen 


17 


[18] 


DEAF  BERTHA.    1890 
Private  Collection 


RED-HAIRED  WOMAN  IN  THE  GARDEN  OF  "PERE  FOREST".    1889 
Private  Collection  [  19  ] 


WOMAN  PULLING  UP  HER  STOCKING.    1894 
[  20  ]  Albi  Museum 


M 


THE  HEART-HOOK 

French  Art  Gallery,  New  York 


AT  THE  "MOULIN  DE  LA  GALETTE".    1889 
[  22  ]  The  Art  Institute,  Chicago 


AT  THE  "MOULIN  ROUGE".   THE  DANCE.    1890 

Henry  P.  Macllhenny  Collection,  Philadelphia  [  23 


"GUEULE  DE  BOIS"  (THE  HANGOVER).    1889 
[  24  1  Cargill  Collection 


RED-HAIRED  WOMAN  IN  A  WHITE  CARACO.    1888 

John  T.  Spaulding  Collection,  Boston  [  25  ] 


[26] 


GIRL  IN  FURS.    1891 
J.  Laroche  Collection 


'LA  PIERREUSE  CASQUE  D'OR."    1891 
Private  Collection 


[27] 


28] 


A  CASUAL  CONQUEST.    1893 
Muse"e  des  Augustins,  Toulouse 


NUDE  WOMAN  STANDING  AT  THE  MIRROR.    1897 

Madame  Dortu's  Collection  [  29  ] 


[30] 


MONSIEUR  BOILEAU  AT  THE  CAFE.    1893 
The  Cleveland  Museum  of  Art.  The  Hinman  B.  Hurlbut  Coll. 


THE  ENGLISHMAN  AT  THE  MOULIN  ROUGE.    1892 

Private  Collection  [  31 


32] 


THE  TWO  FRIENDS 
Tate  Gallery,  Millbank,  London 


AT  THE  MOULIN  ROUGE.   LA  GOULUE  BETWEEN  HER  SISTER 
AND  A  DANCER.    1892 
Bernheim-Jeune  Collection  [  33  ] 


[34] 


JANE  AVRIL  DANCING.    1893 
G.  Wildenstein  Collection 


JANE  AVRIL,  "LA  MELINITE."    1892.     Detail 
G.  Wildenstein  Collection 


JANE  AVRIL  LEAVING  THE  MOULIN  ROUGE 

The  Wadsworth  Atheneum,  Hartford,  Conn. 
36  ]  George  A.  Gay  Collection 


JANE  AVRIL  AT  THE  "DIVAN  JAPONAIS".    1892 

Bourdel  Collection  [  37 


38 


OSCAR  WILDE.    1895 
J.  Seligmann  &  Co.  Collection,  New  York 


MAXIME  DETHOMAS  AT  THE  OPERA  BALL.    1896 
National  Gallery  of  Art,  Washington,  D.C.  Chester  Dale  Collection.   Loan    [  39 


40] 


THE  BED.    1898 
Mrs.  Chester  Beattv's  Collection,  London 


, 


AT  THE  CIRCUS.   THE  FLYING  TRAPEZE.    1899 

Knoedler  Collection  [  41  ] 


AT  THE  MOULIN  ROUGE.   CHA-U-KAO  THE  CLOWN. 
[  42  ]  Dr.  O.  Reinhart's  Collection,  Winterthur 


1895 


MADEMOISELLE  MARCELLE  LENDER  IN  CHILPERIC. 
Private  Collection 


1896 
[43] 


44] 


'AU  HANNETON"  (Lithograph) 
Private  Collection 


MARY  BELFORT  BOWING  (Lithograph) 
Private  Collection 


46 


AT  THE  CIRCUS.   PERFORMING  HORSE.    1899 
Knoedler  Collection 


AT  THE  CIRCUS.   THE  SPANISH  WALK.    1899 

Knoedler  Collection  [  47 


THE 
HYPERION   MINIATURES 

A   new   series,    covering   in   individual 

volumes    the    life    and    art    of   all    the 

great  masters. 

VAN  GOGH   .    EL  GRECO    •   DEGAS 
RENOIR    •    BOTTICELLI    •    REMBRANDT 

GOYA    •    CEZANNE    •    MANET 
GAUGUIN   •   TOULOUSE-LAUTREC 

PICASSO    •   FRA  ANGELICO 

LEONARDO  DA  VINCI    •   BRUEGHEL 

VELASQUEZ 

Each  book   is  a  complete  monograph 

with  eight  reproductions  in  full  colour 

and  forty  halftones. 


LIBRARY  FACILITY 


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